Born To Be Wild Read Online Free Page A

him.
    “What do you think he’s doing here? Our daughter is missing.”
    “He should be out looking for her—”
    “That’s exactly what we were doing, Poppi.”
    “—not bothering you.”
    Micah was, indeed, bothering her, though not in the way her father meant. He was stirring up old feelings that she didn’t want to recognize. The very thing she had feared if she let him get too close.
    “Please,” she said in a low voice, “all of you be civil to him.”
    “Especially you, Poppi,” Reyna told their father.
    Eduard Falcon had never been shy about showing his antagonistic feelings for Micah. Or for any of the Wilds, for that matter.
    “He’s as bad as his father,” Poppi said, repeating the litany she’d heard a hundred times before. “Darlene should have been with me. If Jonah hadn’t stolen her away from me, she wouldn’t be dead now.”
    “You can’t know that,” Cruz said, giving a stone-faced Micah what Isabel considered an apologetic expression. “And if she had gone with you, what about our mother? And where would we be?”
    “I thought you were all here for Lucy,” Micah said. “Not to hash out the details of the damn feud!”
    The room went silent, and Isabel held her breath. Micah was glowering at her family members, and she couldn’t blame him. Still, she waited for the responding explosion.
    And then Reyna suddenly said, “Micah is right. Poppi, I wish you would start believing things worked out the way they were supposed to, but right now, Lucy is the only important one. You need to forget about your grudge with her other grandfather and concentrate on finding her.”
    Poppi merely grunted in a noncommittal manner.
    Isabel didn’t say anything and was thankful that Micah let it go. She could feel the tension pouring from him, but he restrained himself admirably considering the circumstances.
    She thought about the vast divide that had started with their grandfathers, but had been further exacerbated when their fathers both fell in love with the same woman. Jonah had won Darlene’s heart, and Poppi had settled for Isabel’s mother, Carol. And then Darlene had died in childbirth, and Poppi had blamed Jonah. Mama, realizing he’d never love her more than the woman he couldn’t have, had eventually divorced him and moved back to Santa Fe. So then Poppi had blamed Jonah for that, as well.
    “What can we do to help?” Cruz asked Micah directly.
    Seeming surprised, Micah said, “Keep looking for her all over this neighborhood. Stop anyone on the street and ask if they’ve seen her.”
    “What was she wearing?” Reyna asked.
    “Jeans. Her favorite purple long-sleeved T-shirt and a black hoodie with a barrel racer emblem on the back.”
    “We should have photos of her with us,” Cruz said. “All I have on me is that one from her ninth birthday.”
    “That’ll have to do.” Isabel looked to Reyna and Poppi and indicated a couple of framed photos on the fireplace mantel. “You can take those.”
    “I can do better.” Micah pulled out his cell and showed her the screen. A recent close-up photo of Lucy stared back at her. “I took this last month when I bought her that hoodie. I’ll send it to your e-mail account, Isabel, and you can print big color copies for everyone. As a matter of fact, we can make ‘missing’ posters with our phone numbers, in case anyone sees her. You can put them up wherever you can find a public spot.”
    “Great idea!” Reyna said. “Isn’t it, Poppi?”
    Apparently unwilling to show any positive reaction to Micah, Poppi merely grunted again.
    Less than a half hour later, the Falcons left with their flyers, promising to keep up the search until dark. Once they were out the door, Isabel was glad to feel some of the family tension drain away. Now she and Micah could concentrate on finding their daughter. But where to start? She couldn’t focus.
    “What now?” she asked.
    “Let’s head for the school—”
    “You think anyone will still